OK...here we go. all the detracters to what gonna start getting about cool your jets and if you can't say anything constructive, keep quiet for a while. the conversation is not will a 700 take considerable amounts of power. personally, i have a 700, and my truck is fast as shit (there is said it and now i sound like a jerk. but that's just the way it is so guys that don't care for me get over it) john gerber, waller, nolan, tony...we all have 700'sand we're all fast. it IS possible to run a 700 and be fast fast, as long as you realize that your next launch could be your last with the 700. i also can't divulge things that guys who are trying to be real fast have told me in conficence. what i can do it offer you the best advice and knowledge i have.
whew...disclaimers out of the way lets get to work on the topic. how does someone do something other than a 700 without paying the bucks they're asking for the 4L80's. also i gotta tell you, i have asked some really smart people in the tran business about doin a 80 and have had a lot of people tell me it's not the way to go. it eats even more power than a 400 for those that are worried about losing power, the 4th gear over drive is untested somewhat for high performance applications, the electronics which could be really cool if they work could also be a nightmare, etc.
first of all, does everyone realize the the 400 and the 80 are except for the overdrive the same gears as the 400? they are. if you do the 400 with all the roller stuff that rossler does it does not soak up as much power. my competition 700 from carl costs about 3400 bucks initially without the converter. it has some special clutches that he does that cost an additional 500 bucks and i also went with a 4l65 planatary that probably won't help, but since it was apart, why not blow a little more money eachtime!
you can calculate with engine rpm's, tire sizes, and so forth what you will need to race with, but from what a lot of guys are saying they are concerned with driving on the highway at freeway speeds. are we talking about taking trips here? personally, i drive mine around town cruising mostly in third gear anyway because it keeps the r's up and is good for stuff like oil pressure and so forth. i think, that if the worry is longevity and not having to go broke replacin 700, by a lot of times by guys who don't know how to build a 700 in the first place, the 400 with a changing of the gears in 1 and 2 and keeping the 1:1 final 3rd for performance and changing the axle ratios which would help the cruise problem might be something to consider. the overall cost to do this is less than a 80, and probably less than my competition 700.
do i think that you can take it to amco transmissions and ask them about doing this, hell no. i helped ed hess figure out how to do it to his truck and sent him to carl rossler. don't email me on how to get hold of him. rossler transmissions has a website. call and ask for carl and tell him i reccomended him to do the conversion. he just figuured it all out for ed when i sent him there so he knows how to do it. he'll help with all the gearing stuff.
and for what it's worth for the 59th time, there are a lot of people who can build you a great 700 for 500 plus horsepower. brian, but some of ya'all think brian is too expensive. just don't tell me he doesn't know how to build a great tran. only suggestion here is have him do if for you instead of buying all these great parts and then having the 3 stooges tran shop assemble it. if you go to george blake do the same. no offense ed, we're buddies, but george wasn't the problem with the 700, it was the people who did it. ed's problem was that he needed to get it going before his wife hit the roof and asked him what was up with the sy...again. i think ed is very happy with the tran that carl did for him.
if ya wanna go on long trips with luggage in the back of the truck use a 700 and get a good one. if what ya want is a stronger trans you flog consider the 400 before you go dumpin 6 to 8 grand into a 80. you can pay for a lot of gas and stick some more power in the motor for that kind of money. carl builds GREAT 400's.
that's about it from me. next we're gonna have discussions on what kind of gas mileage we get. I'm first. i get about 6 mpg cause i can't keep my foot out of it and with c16 that equates to about 1.40 a mile. anybody got worse mileage than that?
. So what gears do you have in your TH400?